Japan Boots Paris Olympics Gymnast For Smoking

The Guardian reports:

Shoko Miyata, the 19-year-old captain of the Japan women’s artistic gymnastics team, has withdrawn from the squad for the Paris Games after violating the team’s code of conduct by smoking, the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) said on Friday.

The women’s squad would compete with four athletes instead of five, the JGA told a media conference. “We apologise from the bottom of our hearts for this,” the JGA’s president, Tadashi Fujita, said, bowing deeply along with other officials including Miyata’s personal coach, Mutsumi Harada.

Coach Harada said that while Miyata’s conduct had been reckless, she had been under extreme pressure to perform at the highest level.

Read the full article. The legal smoking age in Japan is 20.

Japanese gymnastics star Shoko Miyata sent home from Olympics for smoking https://t.co/p7SZ3qXzDI

— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) July 19, 2024